Life and music

I'm writing to help me sort out my thoughts and so that I can remember them later. I've been thinking a lot about life and music; mostly because I can't really do much else while I'm still injured, but also because my experiences for the last year and a half have opened my eyes to a lot of things I didn't think about before. It was always just girlfriends and drugs and practicing. The problem was that I was never into the music part enough to save me from my current state of disrepair. I could blame my teachers and parents for my lack of self-consideration and self-awareness but it doesn't really matter I suppose how it happened. I thought too much and felt too little and it's probably just the way I'm wired. The feeling will never come easily; perhaps it's my biggest challenge. My life and body have now forced it into my conscious brain where still it is often ignored or forgotten. Perhaps I stuck with music because I instinctively knew that it would always present the biggest challenges for me. However, it seems that not until now has there been enough musical context, variety, and stimulation nor months on end in which I wasn't practicing for me to begin to "get it." And by that I mean connecting with all the music I was doing in a deep and personal way. This connection and consolidation combined with my physical situation have allowed me to have this evening a painful and troubling yet glorious experience. The Muti/CSO concert tonight was probably one of the best concerts I've ever been to and I was continually in awe of Muti's conducting and his rapport with the orchestra. In being so moved I was ever more pointedly aware of my current inability to be an active member in any respectable part of our society's musical culture. I feel I could contribute so much, and yet I contribute so little. Is my lack of confidence about my abilities really enough to keep me from pursuing recovery enough so that it is no longer an excuse for my lack of accomplishment? Is convalescence truly escaping me despite my best efforts? I don't know if music can answer these questions. What does seem clear is that the refusal of my tendinitis to go away somehow seems to bring me closer to music every day. It does so by forcing me to feel and thus giving me a totally new and personal way to connect with music. Since in this case the feeling is one of tragedy, this is now the emotional lens with which I hear music. Does that mean pain is now my salvation? I hope that's not messed up.

Hierarchy of weeds

Being at this damn place for a week and not writing anything leaves a lot to be said, but maybe I can just distill out the good parts. Last week was busy... I spent many hours each day observing and taking part in a whole range of different activities. I got my fill of rehearsals and coachings. I saw a lot of young people playing new music and old men playing old music. As I continue to use these opportunities to find answers and inspiration, I suppose it's worth noting the few things that got to me the most. First, I got to sit in on a few rehearsals with a pianist named Anton Kuerti. At age 71 he is doing the final laps of a long successful career in music. He is one of those few lucky people who has managed to maintain a deep connection and involvement with music while continuously concertizing, recording, and teaching since age 11. As I sat next to him in rehearsal and turned his pages, I had a glimpse into the mind of someone who understands and communicates at least the classical part of the language of music with extraordinary depth and care. Looking at a sheet of music for him must be like looking at page of text written in a language whose content, etymology, dialects, and origin languages you all know intimately. It is a fluency quite beyond my comprehension. If I was one less prone to laziness and indifference it might've been one of those life-changing moments. Even still, it was incredibly powerful.

Second, and nicely correlated, I experienced an unexpectedly moving experience of my own while listening to a rehearsal of Varese's Ionisation. I had been following along with the score in hand when seemingly out of nowhere I felt during the first few opening phrases a meaningful communication, one coherent thought followed by a contrasting one, which somehow touched me. Perhaps after having sat in on a lot of percussion rehearsals by that point, my ears were beginning to get in touch with the language of percussion music. However, I never expected the depth with which this piece, written for almost completely unpitched percussion instruments, suddenly spoke to me. It made me think, no one has to tell you how to understand a language as long as you decide to listen to it as much and as hard as you can. It also made me think how awesome it must be for conductors and musicians to continually discover new meaning in anything they study. I think it also helped that Ionisation is apparently one of the masterworks of the percussion repertoire. That of course begs the question: what is a "masterwork," because I think I started to get to the answer right then and there.

Thus I think all of this sitting and listening and observing has given me several important insights. The amount that I have immersed myself in everything musical and artistic that has been going on here at Banff for the past few weeks, the fact that I have already been at least nominally involved in music for the past 18 years, and the fact that I still find it very exciting and moving indicates to me that if I were to choose a language that I had to speak for the rest of my life it would be music. Everyone who pursues music must already intuitively know this about themselves, but I, as I am wont to do, had to think my way to this conclusion. Furthermore, it now seems clear that much of my lack of true passion for music is due to my lack of fluency. The fact that I went through music school without ever really listening to much other music than what I was working on and what I had to learn for classes might be understandable but is pretty tragic. Newly armed, however, with the confidence that it is very unlikely I will ever get bored by music, the plan seems to me to be that in addition to healing my body and coming to accept and appreciate who I am, I should listen as hard as I can to as much music as possible. It is fortunate that since the confidence I have in my beliefs is always based on so-called evidence, Banff has furnished me plenty of reasons to feel that I am on the right track. Whatever that means. Lord knows none of this answers the question of how I'm going to make a living. But self-actualization always comes before finding a job right?

Gotta have all the pieces

Being in the Banff bubble for the last few days has helped me realize at least one important thing so far. As I mentioned, I have known for a few months now at least that part of my healing process, perhaps the most important part, will be dealing with pain and suffering in my brain. Recently I have come to think, with the help of my friends, that this mental healing mostly involves gradually coming to accept and love myself. Today I see that that process involves at least two parts: on the one hand, I must work to live a fulfilling life, and on the other, I must work to understand and appreciate who I was and what I did in the past. Both parts are difficult. The aforementioned bubble has helped me do the former while completely avoiding the latter. So what I realized this evening is that I cannot forget either part.

I had a talk yesterday with the director of the program, Barry Shiffman, who encouraged me to spend my time at Banff experiencing and absorbing as much as possible. It was nice to see he thought I still had much to gain while being here despite not playing at all. To that end, I am working to fill up my schedule with as many observational or therapeutic activities as possible. I'm trying to take notes everywhere I go, and I've already learned a lot in just two days. There are many people I still need to talk to from other programs that are running simultaneously here at Banff. I went swimming again today for the first time in about five days. We had a scheduled power outage as well in both the music building and the residence hall which made me realize I have no idea whether meat sitting in a nonfunctioning fridge for nine hours is something to worry about or not. So of course I did worry about it and ended up storing it outside on my balcony in a tub full of ice for nearly the whole day. Barry couldn't tell me whether my half pound of turkey would have been okay or not had I left it in the fridge but he did assure me that bears haven't learned how to use grappling hooks yet. We had the first master class today led by Don Wielerstien(sp?). His inability to hear one of the student's names as Rosie instead of Rhody made me a little uneasy. But he's one of the best violin teachers and quartet performers in the world and his coaching of my group yesterday was awesome. He dealt a lot with the physicality of playing an instrument which was exactly the kind of thing I needed to hear. That evening I talked with a few dancers that are part of another residency who sounded totally badass and I really look forward to seeing their rehearsals, performances, and talking with them about their experiences with their bodies. Maybe I can have some hands-on experience with their bodies as well. Sarah, I'm totally joking.

Looking forward to tomorrow while looking back into the past.

a new day

I first created this blog mostly to record my progress in violin. Since that has come to a standstill as I wait for my arms to heal, and because my injury has made me realize I was focusing on many of the wrong things, I'd like to spend some time now writing about my progress and experiences in life in a more general way. I should have acknowledged to myself a long time ago, given my clear lack of balance physically as well as mentally, that the path I was on, if you can call it that, was pretty flawed. But as usual, I ignored the DANGER: PRECIPITOUS FALL AHEAD signs and so my body has forced me to come around the hard way. I'm trying to listen to it now.

I'm not sure yet how attending a chamber music program in Canada fits into my general goal of recovering and finding balance. I'm hoping that the vacation-like atmosphere and the breathtaking scenery will give me a chance to relax and find some peace and inspiration. I also believe that being on the outside of this program will allow me to get some perspective on what my life would be like if I had never gotten injured. Perhaps I will find answers to questions like is this something I could do for my whole life? Is this me? Do I really connect with all this? Sometimes when you play a role for so long you forget what's you and what isn't. The hard part will start tomorrow, when everyone begins working and I am left to my own devices. Today I could still pretend.

Here's to believing in the good side of difficult times.
I am, after all, at a resort.

Back on some sort of track

So my life went a little haywire after my audition last Saturday, so this is my first post since then.

Violin: During the last week, I practiced a couple hours on tuesday and wednesday, none on thursday, and only one on Saturday. I realized I was going to get shit come pay day last night, so I tried to kick myself in the butt during the last three days. Here they are:

Friday:
12-12:30: Warmup
12:40-1:10: Beethoven Concerto
1:30-2:15: Mozart 39 mvt. 1
2:40-3:25: Beethoven Concerto
4:15-4:35, 5-5:40: Schumann Scherzo
7:30-8:30: Copland Symphony No. 3

Sunday:
11-12: Warmup, Beethoven
5:50-6:20: Mendelssohn Scherzo
6:30-7:30: Mend. Scherzo, Don Juan
7:40-8:10: Don Juan
8:25-9:25: Mozart 39 mvt. 1
9:45-10:15, 10:40-11:40: Schumann Scherzo

Monday:
10:15-10:45: Warmup
11-12: Beethoven Concerto
12:20-12:50, 1:10-1:40: Mend. Scherzo
1:45-2:15, 2:50-3:20: Don Juan
3:20-3:50: Schumann Scherzo
4:45-5:15: Brahms 2
5:25-5:55 Mozart Concerto
6:45-7:25, 11:15-11:35: Mozart 39 mvt. 1

As you can see I've been trying a new style of doing many smaller chunks of practicing, instead of always trying to make it through an entire hour at once.

Life: Many things happened in my life that lead to the lack of practice earlier in the week. My bow hair came out of the tip so I had to bring it in to get fixed. I got my violin tuned up too. On thursday I had two appointments at UofC and Northwestern, as well as a outing to the Congress Theater to see Explosions in the Sky. Saturday was my Mom's birthday. Last night I went to see a MusicNOW concert that featured film music of Golijov and Glass. It made me want to arrange some Glass for my band since there are surprisingly many similarities in style (Glass's obviously being superior, and thus arrange-worthy).

Practice Time: 20 hours for the week (4 on Friday, 5 on Sunday, 6 on Monday)

World weary

Violin: Here is my record of the last two days.

Wednesday:
10:50-11:50: Mozart Concerto
12:15-1:15: Mendelssohn Scherzo
1:45-2:45: Mozart 39 mvt. 2
6-7: Mendelssohn Scherzo

Thursday:
10:45-11:45: Mozart Concerto
5:45-6:45: Mendelssohn Scherzo
8-9: Brahms 4 and Mozart 39 mvt. 4
9:40-10:40: Hindemith and Prokofiev Classical mvt. 1

You may notice lots of mendelssohn in the last couple days...that is because it sucked ass and so hopefully it does not suck so much anymore.

Life: Wednesday I had a band rehearsal which took out my night. Today I had my first meeting with this woman who is going to test me to see if I'm ADD or have some other neurological problem. Going up to Evanston in the middle of the day for 2 hours took up a good chunk of time. Can I do 6 tomorrow?

Practice Time: Wednesday - 4 hours, Thursday - 4 hours

If I didn't ever have anything to do...

..I could practice all day.

Violin: Yesterday went well mostly because I have the motivation caused by the upcoming audition as well as monetary compensation and the fact that I didn't have anything else to do.

11-12: Mozart Concerto
12:45-1:45: Mendelssohn Scherzo
2:30-3:30: Hindemith and Mozart 39 mvt. 4
4:30-5:30: Mendelssohn Scherzo
7:10-8:10: Schumann Scherzo
11:10-12:10: Don Juan

Life: Watched the second half of "Bush's War." Wasn't as riveting as the first half, since, well, the story isn't over yet. There could yet be some major chapters yet to be written in this tale of woe. And lo and behold, I picked up the newspaper today to see that shiite violence in Basra threatens to collapse the flimsy hold our troops have on the country. The suspense is killing me!

Practice Time: 6 hours